gusto science

Our approach

Most research reports what was found. Gusto Science also asks how the knowledge is used in practice and when it matters in a real situation. These questions are often left to the closing discussion of an article. We make them the starting point.

Three forms of knowledge. Each TRIAD analysis reads an article in three dimensions. Episteme is what is known and can be stated. Techne is the professional skill of applying it: how it is done. Phronesis is the judgement of when and why it matters in a given context. The distinction goes back to Aristotle. In research on professional skill it has a close counterpart in the division between propositional knowledge, skill and familiarity (Göranzon; see Herdenstam 2011). Later work applies the Aristotelian forms of knowledge directly to the sommelier's craft (Crichton-Fock & Scander 2024).

The double grip. Gusto Science builds on research by its founder, Anders Crichton-Fock (PhD, KTH 2011, published as Anders Herdenstam), Senior Lecturer at the School of Hospitality, Culinary Arts and Meal Science, Örebro University. His thesis described the double grip, and the method built on it, the Double Grip Analysis (Herdenstam 2011). The idea develops a tension Diderot described in Paradoxe sur le comédien (c. 1773): the actor's reflective distance and technical control, held together with the ability to express emotion without being governed by it. Science and art are two sides of the same coin: the same knowledge, given different form. The analytical side moves from parts to whole. It generalises, expresses knowledge in attributes and terminology, and values what can be measured, for its precision and repeatability. The analogical side moves from whole to parts. It exemplifies, expresses knowledge in metaphors, analogies and examples, and values the whole, for the shared understanding it builds. The two sets of values cannot be compared, but each needs the other. Techne is the grip that turns the coin: the question decides which side is needed, and the answer is tested in the concrete situation. As the anthropologist Edmund Leach put it, analysis and synthesis depend on each other, yet we too often treat analysis as the end goal.

From analysis to understanding. New understanding arises in the movement between the two. It starts in a concrete situation, where a problem has to be solved and no single perspective is enough, and it leads to a hypothesis about what matters there. In the founder's later work this movement is described as abductive reasoning. Analogical training has been shown to help professionals make more precise judgements and find a common language (Herdenstam et al. 2020), and communication works better when it corresponds to the sensory experience it describes (Crichton-Fock, Spence & Pettersson 2023). Gusto Science applies the same principle to research itself. We call it contextual alignment: presenting a finding so that it matches the situation where it will be used.

A tested approach. The approach has been studied empirically since 2003. A review of research on the language of wine concluded that the analytical perspective needs an aesthetic complement, using analogies and examples, to articulate the tacit dimensions of the experience (Herdenstam et al. 2009). In sommelier training, extended analogical training in dialogue seminars broadened participants' use of attributes and built a more shared understanding of common words, while analytical training improved how consistently they repeated their judgements (Herdenstam et al. 2018). A pilot study with sommeliers and chefs found that analogical training helped participants use personal keywords and experiences to make more precise sensory assessments, find a common language, and judge the same product more consistently in replicates (Herdenstam et al. 2020). The method is used in undergraduate teaching at Örebro University and has been applied with Washington State University (Harrington et al. 2020).

Across disciplines. Later projects carry the double grip across fields. Sensory science has been combined with metabolomics and robotics, where network analysis linked plant metabolism to taste (Herdenstam et al. 2022; Seeburger et al. 2023). It has been combined with crossmodal psychology and consumer research on how wine is communicated and labelled (Crichton-Fock, Spence & Pettersson 2023; Crichton-Fock et al. 2023), and with studies of how consumers perceive new ways of growing food (Califano, Crichton-Fock & Spence 2024). The double grip has also been used to create analogue wines (Crichton-Fock & Spence 2024). This meeting between fields is what Gusto Science sets out to make visible at scale.

Why this matters across fields. Breakthroughs often come from the meeting of research traditions, not from one tradition alone. The thesis uses Crick and Watson as an example: an analytical and a holistic approach together solved the structure of DNA. Gusto Science uses the shared contexts that AI finds across articles to show where fields meet, and is being built to show where findings converge, where they diverge, and where gaps remain. Divergence is not treated as noise. Making differences visible, an "agreement on disagreement", is itself a source of insight.

In the app. Each TRIAD analysis builds a constructed use situation: an example that shows a finding applied by a given professional role, put as a question. Episteme states what the study supports, techne proposes how it could be done, phronesis asks when and why it matters. The app cannot perform the double grip for you. It sets up the situation and the questions, and the grip itself is yours, as in a dialogue seminar. Ask brings articles from different fields together around your question, and the research map shows the environments behind them.

What it is for. The aim is to help researchers and professionals see the effect of research beyond their own field. They can then find partners across disciplines and design studies that explore the gaps. Complex societal problems around food, health and sustainability seldom fit inside one discipline.

In more detail. How articles are collected, screened and analysed, the known limitations, and the full list of thinkers and works the model draws on are described at gusto.science/foundation.

References

Foundations: the double grip and practical knowledge

The method tested: analogical training and dialogue seminars

Across disciplines: sensory science combined with other fields

Full list of publications: ORCID 0000-0003-3762-483X.